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Short Track Trouble: Is There a Future for Local Tracks?

September 25, 2005

In 1955 former NASCAR champion Bobby Allison drove his 1938 Chevrolet to Hialeah Speedway, painted some numbers on the door, and went racing. Three weeks later he won. "I’ve never forgotten Hialeah Speedway," Allison says, "and what it did for me."

Plenty of other pro drivers got their start at Hialeah, a flat, little paved oval track just west of Miami. Though Bobby Allison, his brother Donnie and friend Red Farmer are known as the founding members of the Alabama Gang, they learned to race at Hialeah Speedway.

On a sweltering Saturday night in August Hialeah Speedway closed, after 51 years. The closing makes Miami-Fort Lauderdale the largest metropolitan area in the United States without a short track that is within a relatively easy drive.

From the front gate of Hialeah Speedway to the front gate of Charlotte County Speedway in Punta Gorda, on Florida’s other coast, it is a drive of exactly 168.9 miles. That’s how far short-track fans and racers now must travel to a race. Assuming anyone wants to. Hialeah’s regular Saturday show usually drew maybe 300 fans and 50 race cars. But the closing show drew more than 7000 fans and 161 race cars.

Typically you don’t miss something until it is gone, and fortunately—due mostly to the tireless efforts of Hialeah announcer and motorsports writer Marty Little—the last night of racing at Hialeah drew an enormous crowd and a huge roster of competitors. It also drew a who’s who of former Hialeah racers, including Herb Tillman, who won the first race at Hialeah in 1954.

Tillman, who turned 76 the day of the last race, was back for this final night, bringing the trophy he won here decades ago. Tillman went on to race in NASCAR starting in 1960. He arrived Saturday night in a white stretch limousine dispatched by Darrell Gwynn, a former National Hot Rod Association top fuel drag racer who practically grew up at the track.

In 1954 Hialeah Speedway was in the middle of nowhere, but now you can see a McDonald’s, a Winn-Dixie, a Blockbuster and an Office Depot from the scoring tower. The speedway has been doomed since 1999. Every race since Marty Little wondered if the last race was indeed the last race. Shortly bulldozers will tear into the track’s grandstands, leveling the land for development.

It is a scene repeated often in Florida. Sunshine Speedway in Pinellas Park closed last year to make way for land developers. Jax Raceway in Jacksonville closed its dirt oval in April, and St. Augustine Speedway remains closed after several years. Orange County Raceway near Orlando is closed, Thunder Cross in Okeechobee was razed for housing, Sand Mountain Speedway in Fort Meade exists but has never opened. Hendry County Speedway in Clewiston closed last year after its owner died of a heart attack while racing at the track, though new owners are trying to keep it going.

Even Charlotte County has struggled—exactly one year to the day before Hialeah’s last night Hurricane Charley devastated Charlotte County Speedway, and management has fought to keep it open. The track’s landowner, the local airport authority, has gone on record as being a less-than-enthusiastic proprietor to the little speedway.

It isn’t just Florida that is losing its little tracks. In the past couple of years notable closings include Mesa Marin and Cajon in California, Tioga in New York, Moc-A-Tek in Pennsylvania. Others, such as Hardeeville Speedway in South Carolina, and historic Birmingham International Raceway in Alabama, have shut down, and may or may not reopen. Hurricane Katrina shut down at least three tracks for the season, and maybe for good.

Hilltop Raceway near Watertown, Tennessee, closed because noise complaints from neighbors reached the ears of local politicians. But track owner Wayne Anderson is making noise himself: He filed a $1 million lawsuit against Wilson County, where the track is located, claiming he was unlawfully deprived of his livelihood.

Little tracks face so many challenges. High gasoline prices for fans are one factor, but racing fuel is at least $5 a gallon now and rising. Smaller crowds mean smaller purses, so racers can’t finance much of their racing by what they win.

Television is another factor, not the least of which is NASCAR’s push to air as many races as possible at night, when the TV-viewing audience is the largest. Televised Friday and Saturday night races give race fans one more reason to stay home. Though NASCAR sanctions some local tracks around the country— 65 tracks in four divisions, by its own count—not one of those tracks is in NASCAR’s home state of Florida.

Still, some short tracks thrive. Irwin-dale Speedway near Los Angeles "survives on a constant diet of promotion, promotion, promotion," says Doug Stokes, the track’s public relations director. "Promotion from word of mouth, car clubs, business-to-business contacts, work with all sorts of civic groups, plus a limited number of advertisements in newspapers, radio and TV." Add to that fan-friendly features such as face-painting clowns for kids, specialty food items,

driver autograph sessions and near-spotless bathrooms.

The biggest problem facing smaller speedways, though—and one that virtually guarantees the death of a track—is that the land so many speedways sit on is worth more as something else. Allan Brown, publisher of National Speedway Directory ( ), says Mesa Marin Speedway in Bakers-field, California, is a prime example. "The track is valued at $1.9 million," Brown says, "but they got an offer of $4 million for the land from a developer. Can you blame them for selling?"

So are we about to run out of short tracks in America? "I’m not concerned—yet," Brown says. He counted 1036 active oval tracks, including big NASCAR speedways, in the United States in 2004, down just three from 2003. And that 2003 total—1039—Brown says, was the most tracks since 1955, when there were 1061. In 1953 "smack-dab in the middle of the jalopy era," according to Brown, the number of tracks peaked at 1187. Tracks like Mesa Marin and Hialeah are "high-profile" losses, Brown says, but we have not yet reached a crisis stage.

Likely that is of little consolation to race fans in the Miami area, who turned out en masse for Hialeah’s last night but had avoided it for years prior. At least one promoter is contemplating building a new short track near Miami, but plans remain fluid. The first hurdle: find some land no one wants. For now, at least.